Breathe Owl Breathe (BOB) had impeccable timing in my life on Wednesday night as I listened to their two new songs (found on two separate 7" records) dubbed The Listeners and These Train Tracks that accompany their new children's stories with the same names. more ›

Joyce Carol Oates: elegant, genius, prolific, a little bit spooky. Whether reading her delicately crafted yet deeply searing short stories about growing up—which you can still do as an adult&mdahs;or her lengthy, complex novels about relationships, status, and even celebrity, her diverse themes and subtle phrasing create some of the most memorable books you'll ever experience. more ›

Perhaps it’s not really a stretch to state that a country’s history, family values, and cuisine are irrevocably intertwined, but rarely has this relationship been so examined as in Camilla Gibb’s latest novel, The Beauty of Humanity Movement. Part history lesson, and part social commentary on Vietnam’s past to future, Movement’s flawlessly constructed characters satisfy like a warm bowl of pho after a wicked-bad hangover. more ›

Last week, literary non-profit 826 Seattle announced the release of its latest publication, "What to Read in the Rain." The book, available October 1, contains 300 pages of Northwest-centered stories, poems, essays and recipes from well-known Northwest authors and 826 Seattle youth participants. Among those authors who participated are Tom Robbins, who contributed the book's introduction; Seattle restaurateur Tom Douglas, who shares a pancake recipe; David Guterson, speaking for the trees and actress Lauren Weedman, adding a hilarious take on a doomed relationship. more ›

Since his 1984 debut novel, Neuromancer, William Gibson has been changing the relationship of science fiction to reality. His earlier work defined the term cyberpunk and prefigured the rise of the Internet. More recently, Gibson's work has been set in the now, bringing the language of awe used in science fiction to describe the increasingly alien world we live in. more ›

Those in search of a spark to break their writer’s block need look no further: The 2010 Flash Fiction Challenge is here! No, really—the deadline to register is today, Aug. 11. The international short-story fiction competition (formerly called the Creative Writing Championships) is in its third year and is sponsored by NYC Midnight Movie Making Madness, an organization focused on discovering new talent in storytelling, be it on film or in writing. Writers must stick to 1,000 words or fewer for each story, the first of which has to be written this weekend starting on Friday. Judges then apply a points system to their favorite pieces, and the top contenders move on to the next round (there are four rounds; entrants are guaranteed to participate in at least two of them). Organizers assign each participant a genre (such as crime caper, historical fiction, fairy tale), a location (a baseball stadium, hallway, locker room, whathaveyou), and an object (a toothbrush, a TV, a banana) to be featured in each piece, so writers can expect to be forced out of their creative comfort zone. Which is how most works of genius come about, right? Right. Now get caffeinated and get writing. more ›

"You could say that this book is about what happens when you give your rites of passage a body-swerve." more ›

Though this is Chandler Burr's first novel, he is also the author of three other non-fiction books: The Perfect Scent, The Emperor of Scent, and A Separate Creation. And if you're smelling sensing a particular theme, you're on the right track--Burr has been the The New York Times scent critic since August '06. more ›

British poet Simon Armitage (b. 1963, Huddersfield, in West Yorkshire) was in town this week for the Seattle Arts and Lectures Poetry Series (still tickets available for Naomi Shihab Nye's second night, May 8). more ›

For those of you who didn't know, April is not only about Easter and April Fool's Day; it's also National Poetry Month! more ›

April 4 is the not-to-be-missed Seattle Edible Book Festival (at Wallingford's Good Shepherd Center, 4649 Sunnyside Ave. N.) where word nerds, book lovers, and creative cooks can get together and cook the books so to speak, or eat their own words and laugh over hokey literary puns. more ›

Author John Updike was at Seattle Arts & Lectures this week. The upcoming SAL appearance of Annie Leibovitz (November 19) is sold out. Michael Pollan (January 12) is almost sold out. more ›

JOHN FUCKING UPDIKE: His gallivanting rabbits may have lost a step, Updike reports: "When, against my better judgment, I glance back at my prose from 20 or 30 years ago, the quality I admire and fear to have lost is its carefree bounce, its snap, its exuberant air of slight excess." But as a critic he's an admirably close, inquisitive reader, and of course he's still John fucking Updike to all of us, so having him in town is a delight. In theory he'll be talking to the Seattle Arts & Lectures audience about small towns and the middle class. more ›

To mark the centennial of Theodore Roethke’s birth, poets Linda Bierds, Andrew Feld, Richard Kenney, Colleen McElroy, Heather McHugh, and Pimone Triplett are gathering to read and talk about Roethke, who inspires that kind of devotion, whether you knew him personally or not. The Washington Center for the Book, Poetry Society of America, and University of Washington Creative Writing Program are throwing the party at the Seattle Public Library, in the Microsoft Auditorium. It's this Wednesday, from 7 to 8:30 p.m., and it's free. more ›

For a MacArthur-proclaimed genius, Linda Bierds is fairly low profile. She lives on Bainbridge Island, teaches in the English department at the University of Washington, and has had tons of poems published in mainstream literary magazines such as The Atlantic and The New Yorker, the holy grail of "someone who's not an MFA student has read my poetry" achievement. Tomorrow night she's at the UW Bookstore (7:00 p.m., free), reading from her new book, Flight. more ›

Adrian Tomine started making comics in his teens when he created Optic Nerve. In it, he tells stories about people who tend to be searching for answers to questions they seem to think everyone else already knows. After a few years putting out Optic Nerve on his own, it was picked up by publisher Drawn and Quarterly. more ›

Web site just to see if any disaster had befallen us overnight that may take precedence over our literary venture. What we saw, buried toward the end of the day's headlines, was this: more ›

. The novels explore the interaction between the Christian West and Muslim East and the struggle between Modernity and fundamentalism, and as such, Pamuk was seen as the anti-Samuel Huntington. That explanation has never been entirely satisfying, but for the uninitiated not yet familiar with the work of this prodigiously gifted writer, this can serve as a brief introduction to the ideas that will be flying at Benaroya tonight, when Pamuk makes a much anticipated appearance as part of the Seattle Arts & Lectures series. more ›

The trio of authors Akashic's showcasing includes the novelists Felicia Luna Lemus and Joe Meno, neither of whom we've read and therefore can't comment on. But trust us--it's worth going for Chris Abani alone. An exiled Nigerian playwright and novelist, Abani was such a thorn in the military regime's side that they even tried to assassinate him in London (prompting his move to the US, where he currently teaches at UCLA). more ›

Last night Seattlest went to Town Hall to hear Afghan-American author Khaled Hosseini read from his new novel, A Thousand Splendid Suns. Hosseini's first novel, The Kite Runner was in many ways a phenomenal achievement and by all accounts, the new book has surpassed even the most hopeful of expectations. more ›

This month we subject Pauls Toutonghi’s young adult novel Red Weather to the awesome critical power that is Seattlest. The book has nothing to do with Seattle, but Toutonghi allegedly spent some formative years here and he’s old friends with our most frequent contributor, so what the hell? We’re trying out a new “point/counterpoint” format, with contributors Matt Silvie and James Callan facing off. more ›

One of the great things about the German Expressionist era is that the films are so much fun to watch -- they're some of the hardest working visuals in show business. But at the Paramount, you also get Dennis James on the Mighty (Liberace-Lookin') Wurlitzer, and for the first time at the Paramount, we enjoyed the sound up in the balcony. Whoever placed the organ's pipes knew what they were doing -- we felt like we had our "stereophonic" headphones on. And who knew a pipe organ could create such a snappy snare drum roll? more ›

Ever desired to follow in the footsteps of Henry Miller, Anne Rice, or Anonymous? The Richard Hugo House is giving you your chance:

Richard Hugo House invites writers age 18 and older to submit manuscripts of fewer than 5,000 words to its erotica writing competition. The theme is "One Foot on the Floor" and the deadline is February 1. The winner will receive a $250 prize, a $50 gift certificate from Babeland and the chance to read on the Hugo House cabaret stage with an established writer on February 13, 2007. more ›

In this week's Stranger, Franklin grad Brendan Kiley remembers getting hit on by Allen Ginsberg at a 1994 reading. more ›

Seattlest has come to borrow from you again. more ›

To have been at McCaw Hall Friday night, is to have been truly blessed. It was a night filled with smiles, laughter and bottomless admiration – not only for the performers, but also for the people behind the scenes for whom this night was meant to benefit. It was a night which, at one point, brought a couple tears to our eyes. But we’re sensitive like that. more ›

Those design-obsessed types over at Coudal Partners have just recently posted Field Tested Books, an online compendium of book reviews by lots of bookish (and blogish) people. Not just your ordinary reviews, these focus on books read in specific places and the impact the locale had on the reader's experience (hence, Coudal likes to refer to them as "experience reviews" instead). more ›

Seattlest used to subscribe to The New Yorker. Actually, Seattlest still does subscribe to The New Yorker, but since late September we've barely managed to keep up with the cartoons each week, let alone more substantial content. more ›

Octavia Butler died at the age of 58 yesterday after a fall near her home in Lake Forest Park. She was the only science fiction writer ever to recieve a MacArthur Foundation genius award. more ›

That guy that's usually tapping at his laptop and gazing off into the middle distance at the cafe has suddenly disappeared. He's at home furiously typing his tell-all memoir: "The world knew me as a female refugee from the Phillipines who escaped a life of political oppression, violence, prostitution and drugs but now I must reveal myself as a midwestern white boy who lied about it all to sell a few books. The ironic thing is, none of the fake pain I was writing about can compare to the actual devastation of living with this lie for the past ten years." more ›